“Our direction lies in a thickly-populated section, not many blocks from the water front.  It is in the tenement district where dozens of families are huddled together in one house.  We pause in front of a rickety building and stop an urchin in the hallway, who replies to the question that we are in the right house.  Then the good Doctor pulls out of his pocket the letter he received some hours ago from the grief-stricken young mother whose baby was ill and who asked for aid.

“Up flight after flight of stairs we go; two storeys, three, four, five.  As we reach the landing, a tidy young woman appears.  She is holding her face in her hands and sobbing to break her heart.

“‘Oh, I knew you would come,’ she says, as the tears roll down her cheeks; ’I used to go to your church, and I know how deeply your sermons touched me.  Oh!  That was long ago.  It was before I knew John, and before our baby came.’

“Here the speaker broke down completely.

“‘But it’s all over now,’ she began again.

“’John has ill-used me, and beaten me, and forced me to support him in drunkenness.  I could stand all that for my baby’s sake.’

“She had sunk to the floor on her knees.  She was pouring out her soul in agony of grief.

“‘Oh! my baby, my baby!’ she cried piteously.  ’Why were you taken?  Oh, the blow is too much!  I can’t stand it.  Merciful Father, have I not suffered enough?’

“She fell in a heap on the floor.  The heavy breathing and sobbing continued.  We looked into the little room.  It was scrupulously clean, but barren of furniture and even the rudest comforts of a home.  The window curtains are pulled down, but a ray of bright sunlight shoots in and lying on the apology for a bed is a babe.  Its eyes are closed.  Its face is as white as alabaster.  The little thin hands are folded across its tiny breast.  Its sufferings are over.

“The Angel of Death had touched its forehead with its icy finger and its spirit had flown to the clouds.

“The end had come before the preacher could offer aid.

“What a scene it was!

“Here, in one of the biggest cities in the world, an innocent child had died of hunger, and because its mother was too poor to pay for medical attendance.

“A word or two was whispered in the mother’s ear and we pass down the creaking stairs to the street.  The sun is shining brightly.  A half-dozen romping children are on their way home to lunch.  The business of the great city is moving briskly.  It is Christmas week and the air is redolent with the suggestions of good things to come and visions of Kriss Kringle.  Truck drivers are whipping their horses and swearing at others in their way.  An organ-grinder is playing ‘Sweet violets’ on a neighbouring corner.  Everyone in the streets is of smiling face and happy.”

The picture is not mine, nor could I have drawn one of myself, but it is a sketch illustrating the almost daily experiences of a “popular” minister, as I was called.  It was estimated that my weekly sermons, in all parts of the world, reached 180,000,000 people every Monday morning—­the year 1888.  This was gratifying to a man who, in his student days, had been told that he would never be fit to preach the Gospel in any American pulpit.  I thanked God for the great opportunity of His blessings.